Soft tissue sarcoma, though a rare form of cancer, are more common than sarcomas of bone. These cancers develop from connective tissue (such as muscle, tendons, blood vessels , nerves etc) in the limbs or other areas of the body. The hallmark of these tumors is a usually painless (although some soft tissue sarcomas may be painful) swelling or lump in the thigh, leg, arm or any other part of upper or lower extremity that is growing in size. As a rule, any swelling or lump in the muscles which is deep OR more than 5 cm size OR is growing in size MUST be evaluated thoroughly with MRI and biopsy.
The biopsy is a trucut biopsy, mostly done as an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia. Once diagnosed, the patients requires to undergo radiological staging studies. What causes soft tissue sarcomas is unknown in majority of cases, although some cases may be attributed to factors such as genetic syndromes, radiation and chemical exposure.
The mainstay of treatment of soft tissue sarcomas is surgery, a wide excision of soft tissue sarcoma (where the cancer is removed with a cuff of normal tissue around it), which nowadays is a limb saving surgery in > 90 percent of patients. These patients sometimes will require an additional procedure to cover the wound, in the form of muscles flaps or skin and fascial flaps. apart from surgical excision these patients often need radiation therapy (which may be pre operative/ intraoperative or postoperative) and sometimes need chemotherapy or other drugs.The treatment and long term outcome of soft tissue sarcoma will depend on the type of sarcoma (there are more than 50 varieties), stage, size and the “margins” with which the surgery was done.